Live dispatch from a big boat!

Coming to you from the World Buffet...

I’m a day late with my column this week. I meant to write it yesterday but I was at the buffet.

To explain, I’m on a press trip this week. It’s a cruise! I never cruised as a youngster. Instead my friends and I favoured manky hotels with a single bare lightbulb. ‘Just a place to sleep’ we used to say, stoically. As if there was nothing else you might possibly need a room for. These days, if we’re booking an air bnb, the top priority is whether the sofa looks comfy. This after a Berlin weekend where there were all kinds of fancy things - intimidating steel kitchen, unfathomable coffee machine, grand piano (!?) but NO SOFA AT ALL, as sitting comfortably didn’t fit with the design aesthetic.

We never did cruise holidays with our kids either. Instead we preferred to erect an enormous tent in a gale - like fighting with giant billowing knickers - or enrage the cleaning lady of our holiday apartment by leaving three tiny croissant crumbs in the grill tray.

I think subconsciously I’ve always believed that holidaying should involve some degree of conflict and discomfort (like I didn’t really deserve the holiday?) plus sturdy walking boots (apart from the 1993 road trip when I tried to traverse New Mexico wearing mules).

To be honest I thought cruises were for cissies. I guess I got this from my mum and dad.

I’ve shared this before but thought I’d reprise the lashing rain in Wales, circa 1974.

I’d like to go home now please

Anyway I’ve totally changed my mind about cruises. Being lucky enough to be invited on this one I must report that they are NOT for cissies! If a holiday is meant to be about ‘switching off’ then being on a big boat and stopping to be shown very nice places makes absolute sense.

It’s the ultimate switch off. I’m so switched off I find myself circling the enormous buffet with an empty plate, unable to make decisions. In normal life my sad little home worker’s lunch is usually a few crackers with Laughing Cow cheese but here we have: sushi, various roasted meats, billions of salads and seafood including GREEN LIPPED MUSSELS and one of our group, a lovely artist called Kate, is crocheting these mussels as a piece of art. I’m in such a buffet frenzy I nearly scoff these as well!

There is also a caesar salad station, a doughnut station (many stations in fact), sizzling stir fries and a vast selection of cheeses which are going straight into my belly I’ll tell you that for nothing.

I haven’t even started on desserts. It’s insane. I find myself hyper ventilating, suddenly snapping into action and piling WAY too much on my plate, as if it’s all going to run out, in the way that my friends and I behaved in our twenties whenever there was a free bar. Then I go back to the buffet for more as I’d forgotten to choose various items I really wanted to try (my brain being switched off).

It’s almost a shame that the lovely shore excursions get in the way of buffet circling but there you go. The food is totally delicious - every single morsel of it. I won’t look at my Laughing Cow crackers in the same way again. I shall demand scallops and langoustines on an ordinary Tuesday DO YOU HEAR THAT JIMMY!

Bet he can’t wait for me to come home.

Apart from all this we’ve all been sketching loads as this is an art themed cruise. I tell you this to show how sophisticated we are in case you think we’re all getting mashed on free cocktails (ahem) and brawling in the casino (there is no casino. This is a fancy-pants cruise).

See how sophisticated we are! L-R: Nic (here with his artist wife Joan), the fab Carys who’s looking after us all, me (thinking about cheese) and my pal Wendy

I loved sketching the handsome Roman bust dudes in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. Check those curly barnets.

I must, I must, I must improve my busts

Another lovely thing is every time you come back to your room (I thought they were called cabins but no, it’s a stateroom) someone has tidied it all and neatly folded your bra.

When I’m home I shall demand that my bras are neatly folded!

Also, in normal life I’m not very good at managing time. I’m always running for trains and panicking over work deadlines. Here, you don’t have to worry about time at all. You glide though it like the Duchess of Saxony and in that worrying gap between lunch and dinner there is afternoon tea.

So I’m having an absolutely brilliant time with a fab bunch of people, all so interesting. Annie has been the cartoonist for Country Life magazine for 30 years! Her sister Bridget is an incredible print maker and does in fact glide in an ethereal way! It’s a total blast and I feel so blimmin’ lucky I can hardly believe it.

I once read that if you buy a new perfume for a holiday and wear it daily throughout your trip, then when you get home and squoosh it on you’ll be transported right back to your holiday.

With that in mind I treated myself to two Jo Malone minis: Pomegranate Noir and Lime Basil and Mint. The idea is, when I’m back in Glasgow they’ll miraculously make a sushi station appear.

I’ll report back.

Love,

Fiona x

There’s a lorra gelati in Florence!